Reach Out and Read Kansas City was established in 1997 as a collaborative early literacy effort between University of Kansas Medical Center and Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics and now partners with 50+ healthcare clinics making literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric care serving our community’s most at-risk children, ages birth to 5, and their families in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. Over the past 16 years, doctors and nurses have dispensed nearly 800,000 new, developmentally appropriate, books to over 250,000 children. Reach Out and Read Kansas City focuses on reaching children growing up in poverty. Thousands of doctors and nurses have been trained to effectively educate parents on the importance of books with children and the positive correlation to increase their child's brain and language development and school readiness. Reach Out and Read Kansas City is a coalition of National Reach Out and Read and Reading is Fundamental.